


Paper-thin

by hope_calaris



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Depression, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_calaris/pseuds/hope_calaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life stops on a Friday, but nobody notices. (Based on this <a href='community.livejournal.com/tsn_kinkmeme/1522.html?thread=2244594#t2244594"'>prompt</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper-thin

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** The moment unicorns are real, I make money with this.

Life stops on a Friday, but nobody notices -- at least not Chris, Dustin or Mark. Chris spends most of his time in the library, Dustin is busy charming a girl, and Mark tries his hardest to ignore him and to get lost in code.

It works pretty well, until this guy comes into their dorm a week later and tips Mark on the shoulder, because he has his headphones on and doesn’t hear anything else. He startles, because people don’t touch him except for Eduardo and even that took some time to get used to.

“What?” he bellows at the stranger, who’s not really a stranger since he faintly remembers having seen him around Eduardo at some time or the other.

“Whoa, easy there,” the guy says and raises his hands in a placating gesture. Mark doesn’t like him on the spot. “I just wanted to know if you know what’s up with Eduardo. He hasn’t been in class the whole week, he doesn’t answer when I knock at his dorm, doesn’t pick up his cell, and we have this team project coming up, and you’re his friend … “ he trails of, as if he’s given Mark all the information he needs and now it’s Mark’s turn to come up with a satisfying answer. Problem is, he hasn’t one.

“He hasn’t showed up to class?” he asks dumbfounded, and the guy frowns at him.

“No, has he been here? Did you see him?” Which is a totally legitimate question, but another one Mark can’t answer. It wouldn’t be the first time he hasn’t noticed Wardo while he was submerged into code. He starts to feel uneasy.

“I’ll let you know when I have talked to him,” he answers evasively. The other guy shrugs, clearly uncomfortable even being here surrounded by nerds (not when he himself is dressed in a expensive looking button-down and dark slacks and he looks out of place the way Wardo never does in Mark’s room).

“Okay,” other guy says and hesitates a moment, as if he should try an attempt at small talk just for politeness’ sake, but then Mark puts his headphones back on and the other guy leaves without another word.

It turns out that neither Chris nor Dustin have heard from Eduardo in the last week and he really hasn’t stopped by -- Mark feels oddly relieved by this particular information, at least he wasn’t oblivious enough to completely ignore Wardo. It doesn’t help the fact that he didn’t notice Wardo’s continuing absence in the first place.

Dustin jokes that Eduardo probably only needed a break from Mark’s social incompetence and the stress of his course load, but Mark doesn’t buy it (even though for a moment he wonders if the part about his social incompetence really plays a role in Wardo’s disappearance). He spends half an hour looking for the spare key to Wardo’s dorm, which he finally finds under a notebook on macroeconomics Wardo must have forgotten on the coffee table.

The way to Wardo’s dorm seems peculiarly long and nobody answers when Mark knocks at the door. He doesn’t let it stop him, but uses his key to open the door.

He’s honestly surprised when he finds Wardo asleep on his bed while the sun is still shining for once (it’s late December and it’s cold and gray and the sun is as elusive as the girl Dustin tries to make fall for him).

“Wardo?” he asks and closes the door behind him before he steps closer. No need for the rest of the floor to catch the germs if Wardo’s sick.

“Go ‘way,” Wardo mumbles sleepily and turns away from Mark.

“Are you sick?” Mark tries again, but Wardo doesn’t answer him. It’s a new feeling, because usually it’s the other way around and Eduardo has to poke him to elicit a reaction when Mark’s coding. He has no idea what to do now -- he should have brought Dustin or Chris. Eventually, he shuffles the few feet to Wardo’s bed and sits down on the edge. “There was this guy from one of your classes in my room today, asking for you. Apparently, you haven’t been to class the whole week,” he feels the need to explain his presence. Wardo still fails to say anything, and hesitantly Mark reaches his hand out to check Wardo’s forehead for fever, because that’s what his mom did when Mark was sick. Wardo doesn’t feel warm. However, even weirder is that Wardo doesn’t react to his touch. Normally, he would smile, but nothing about this is normal. Not that Wardo’s eyes are still closed, or that his hair looks like he hasn’t washed it in a week. Mark looks around the room and his eyes get caught by the dark blue shirt carelessly hanging over the desk chair and the black slacks pooling on the ground next to it. Wardo remembers that shirt from last Thursday, because Wardo had spent five minutes waving his hand in front of Mark to get his attention and the light had reflected on the shimmering fabric of the shirt. “Wardo,” Mark says, quiet and unsure, “when was the last time you left this room?”

“Just leave me ‘lone,” Wardo murmurs and he sounds … off -- as if he’s not sure if he should talk to Mark. And normally, Mark would do as asked, but this is Wardo and something’s not right and he can’t see any leftovers from take-out or any food at all. And apparently Wardo hasn’t left his room for a whole week.

“Can’t do that,” Mark says with a conviction he doesn’t feel, because he has no idea what’s going on, only that he can’t leave Wardo here alone. “Did you at least eat something?” he asks and resorts to a tactic in Wardo’s handbook - he pokes him.

“When?” Wardo asks annoyed, eyes still closed.

“Don’t know.” Mark shrugs. “Today? Yesterday? Sometime last week?”

“Granola bars and … chips … sometime,” Wardo replies and opens his eyes. He blearily looks at Mark.

“You really should take a shower,” Mark blurts, because Wardo’s hair does look awful.

“What?”

“Take a shower while I order take-out and air the room. You stink.”

“Fuck off.”

“No,” Mark says stupidly and a corner of his brain tells him that he’s in over his head here, that this is something he has no experience and that Wardo likely needs help that Mark can’t provide (Not even if he weren’t so awfully bad with people in general. He really has no idea why Wardo sticks with him anyway.), but he’s the only one here right now and the room really reeks. “Come on,” he says and pulls the blanket off Wardo, which nearly earns him a slap to his face. He’s only saved because Wardo is lacking the energy to aim correctly and hits the beside lamp instead. It falls to the ground and the light bulb shatters into tiny pieces on the carpet. Mark is too surprised to say much, and Wardo takes up the slack for him and curses. He bends down to pick up the pieces, but Mark is faster and grabs his wrist to stop him. It feels thin and he can span his fingers around it.

“Leave it,” Mark says quietly. “I’ll do that while you shower.”

“Since when do you tell other people what to do?” Wardo asks with a chuckle, but it sounds hollow and forced and he won’t meet Mark’s eyes.

“Just take a shower, Wardo,” Mark says and slowly moves his thumb over Wardo’s pulse point. It beats fast under the skin. Eventually, Wardo moves and Mark releases him from his grip.

Wardo takes a long shower, but it gives Mark enough time to clean the mess on the floor, to open the windows and to order from Wardo’s favorite Chinese restaurant. When he’s done and still waiting, he unpacks his laptop, logs onto the network and searches the internet. He ends up on websites he’d prefer to have no knowledge of and has no real idea what to do with the new information, but then the delivery service calls and he gets up to pay the delivery boy. When he gets back, Wardo stands in the middle of the room, hair still wet and tussled, but at least in normal clothes and not only boxer shorts anymore. He’s starring at the screen of Mark’s laptop and then at Mark. His mouth moves as if to say something, but eventually he sits down on his bed, looking absolutely mortified and defeated.

Mark puts the take-out containers on the table and sits down next to Wardo. “You want to talk about it?” he asks, and it may sound weird out of his mouth, but he really means it.

“No.” Wardo won’t meet his eyes, and there’s still a faint blush to his cheeks.

“You want crispy duck?”

“Yes.”

So that’s what they do. They eat Chinese take-out and Mark rambles about his latest adventures in code-writing and computer games and that really awful movie Dustin made him see and which Mark now has to watch with Eduardo as well. He talks until they’ve finished the duck (Wardo hasn’t eaten that much, but that’s okay, at least he ate something) and then there’s silence that makes Mark’s skin crawl.

“The last time this happened to me was when I was fifteen,” Wardo quietly says, as if he’s not sure Mark really wants to know. He still sounds sleepy and drained.

“Okay,” Mark says, because he has no idea what else to say, but he doesn’t think people with better social skills would either.

“You don’t have to stay -- “

“We could go to the Health Service or we could talk or -- “

“We?” Wardo says and blinks at him as if he’s not real.

“Yes.” Mark nods. “We.”

Wardo still has that weird look. He takes a deep breath and exhales it slowly. “Okay … we can do that.”

And so they go to the HUHS, and they talk, and eventually Wardo smiles more and orders take-out and spring comes, then summer and fall, and the next winter Mark watches out for the signs, but Wardo only misses three days of classes because of a cold and still smiles when Mark brings him instant chicken soup.

\---

Wardo doesn’t smile during the deposition, which in itself isn’t that surprising. Mark knows he’s hurt him, that from Wardo’s (and is he still allowed calling him that?) perspective Mark stabbed him in the back. Mark doesn’t regret his business decision, but he regrets the havoc it caused to their friendship -- which apparently is nonexistent anymore, and that’s a thought he didn’t yet get used to.

And then Wardo’s not only smiling, but three days of the depositions have to be cancelled because ‘ _Mister Saverin is unavailable_ ’ his lawyers tell him. It stirs worry in him, which isn’t soften once they’re back in that stifling room, sitting across each other as if they haven’t been best friends once. Wardo looks as if the only reason he’s there again is because his lawyer forced him and they can’t finish without him. He looks drained and hollow and has trouble focusing on the questions, and it reminds Mark of a time during a winter like this, gray and cold and with no smiles. He knows he has to do something.

It’s the evening of the last day of the depositions and he was told he will have to settle with Wardo. He doesn’t really mind, but it hurts in a way to know that no amount of money will salvage what he has sacrificed. He’s sitting in the empty, dark room and alternates between pressing F5 on his laptop and staring at Wardo’s jacket, which hangs forgotten over the vacant chair. Then the door to the conference room opens again. It speaks volumes about how Wardo feels when he doesn’t realize there’s another person in the room at first.

“Wardo,” Mark says cautiously, but Wardo still jumps and turns to him, the forgotten jacket in his hand.

“Oh, fuck … Mark,” he says and his eyes flicker to the door. He’s probably judging how fast he can walk without it looking like an escape.

“Don’t -- just,” he trails off, trying to find the right words.

“What now, Mark?” Wardo asks and he doesn’t have the energy anymore to sound angry, just tired. He probably has a headache the way he’s been pinching the bridge of his nose all day.

“Can we talk?”

“Talk?”

“Yes.”

“I’d have no idea about what and I don’t think I’m even legally allowed to talk to you right now.”

“No, not about the depositions. We’re going to settle anyway -- “

“We’re settling?” Wardo asks surprised and slumps down on his chair. There’s no victory in his voice.

“What did you do the last three days?” Mark asks without reacting to Wardo’s surprise. The money isn’t important. That Wardo is there to actually spend, invest or _burn_ it is.

“I - “ Wardo frowns at him, the reflex to always answer Mark barely suppressed. “None of your business.”

“It is, because I’m not writing a check to someone who’s going to commit suicide before he can cash it.” It comes out harsher than he intended and Wardo stares at him open-mouthed. But he doesn’t contradict him. Mark closes his eyes for a second and sighs.

“Don’t … you can’t do that, Mark,” Wardo whispers miserably. “I just sued you for six hundred millions.”

“And we settled,” he reminds Wardo.

“But it doesn’t matter.”

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t what … god, don’t you see it?”

“Apparently not,” Mark admits. “But it’s winter and this is a difficult time and you don’t smile and then you don’t appear for the depositions for three days. That’s what I see.”

“Mark … “ Wardo looks at him as if he doesn’t know what to do -- go, stay, shout or punch him.

“I don’t care about the money, you know that, but I do care about you. If you want it or not. And if you don’t want to talk to me that’s okay, “ he hesitates, because it’s not okay and it hurts in a way it was never supposed to, “but talk to someone. Please.”

“You never begged for anything before.”

“I do now.”

Wardo doesn’t say anything more, but gets up quietly and leaves Mark behind in the dark room.

It’s two days later when Mark gets the text from Wardo.  
 _  
I’d like to talk._

 _  
_

_\- fin  
_

**Author's Note:**

> I tried my best to stay as true as I could to the prompt and the effects of SAD as I've experienced them, but of course I tweaked everything a bit to fit my idea for the story. I hope I didn't offend anyone. Also, I'm still not a native speaker ^^.


End file.
